I am so happy that I did not vote for Donald Trump.  What kind of a person is he, really?  Was he worth a conservative Supreme Court justice?  Was he worth the repeal of the Johnson Amendment?
     Does America really want a person who posts false and inflammatory videos of Muslims as their leader?
     As one who has been followed Jesus for over forty years, I am appalled at the behavior of the American president.  And I am dumbfounded by the many numbers of other Christ followers who continue to insist that this president is preferrable to his opponent.
     What am I missing?
     Pray for the United States of America.

     We who live in the twentieth-first century, enamored as we are of the seeming infinitude of human achievement and possibility, largely bent on maximizing our existence, on living life to the absolute fullest, yet oftentimes rejecting any notion that a personal God could have any genuine connection to our lives, may forget that, at one point in history, one glorious moment, human possibility and divine order came very close to reconciling and coinciding, to wondrous effect.

     I speak of the Renaissance, the grand "rebirth" of civilization that surfaced at the close of the Middle Ages in the West.  The Renaissance was marked by a powerful belief in human possibility and destiny, that humanity was a special and anointed creation of God and therefore fully capable of doing anything it wanted.  Its future was limitless.  Simultaneously, however, the people of the Renaissance (for the most part) never stopped believing in God and his guiding light and presence in the world.  Though they firmly believed in unlimited human potential, they also believed, with equal fervor, in the fact of God, in the reality of the one who, as Nicholas of Cusa put it, "is the center of the universe, namely God, whose name is blessed . . . the infinite circumference of all things."  The people of the Renaissance demonstrated that we can believe in human greatness and magnificence while acknowledging and submitting to the presence of a living and personal God and, in so doing,underscored the truth of Ecclesiastes 7:18 that, "It is good to grasp one thing and not let go of the other, for the one who trusts God will come forth with both of them."  The Renaissance confirmed that if we properly manage and understand our boundaries and possibilities, we really can have it all.
     God has made humanity infinitely special, and so we are:  infinitely capable of astonishing and amazing things, yet infinitely bound to acknowledge from whom we have come.
     Would that we always strive for both.

     Well, it seems that the Christmas season is upon us.  Surveys tell us that this will be one of the biggest Christmas spending seasons ever recorded.
     Should we be happy?  I'm happy for the people these sales will employ.  I'm happy for the people who will enjoy the gifts they receive.  I'm happy for the joy many people feel in this season.
     I'm most happy, however, at how the Christmas season should cause us to examine what we are doing with our money.  In the end, it's all about giving, giving, that is, to others rather than ourselves.
     Thinking about the congregations in Macedonia many years ago, the apostle Paul observed that, "According to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participating in the support of their brethren" (2 Corinthians 8:3-4).  Consider:  these people didn't wait to be asked to give; they instead begged for the opportunity to give. Moreover, they gave beyond what anyone thought they could give.  They understood that, "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed" (9:8).
     If God is there--and he is--we can never give enough.
     Let the retailers worry about what we should get.  What do they know?  Let us concern ourselves with what we can give.  As you go forth to "conquer" the stores before you, realize that it's no challenge to "get."  We can always do that.  The far greater challenge is to give.
     Life is a gift; give of it freely.

     "You just don't even what to say to God anymore."  These poignant words come from Sherri Pomeroy, wife of Frank Pomeroy, pastor of the Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which, as you may recall, was the target of a horrific armed attack recently.
     Mrs. Pomeroy is being admirably honest.  Those of us who believe in God know (or should know) full well that even if we believe that God is always good, we will inevitably encounter life circumstances in which we are at a loss for words.  Even for God.
     In such times, it is all too easy to say that God is in the darkness before us.  Of course he is.  But this assertion seems unspeakably empty in the face of overwhelming tragedy.  What does God's presence really do for us?  We may think we sense him, we may suppose he is guiding us, we may venture to acknowledge his compassion and companionship.  Yet we are still left with the vicissitudes of a fallen and broken world.
     Some of my atheist friends tell me that they envy me.  Why?  They envy me because even in awful circumstances I find comfort, an indefinable yet purposeful comfort, in the fact of God.  They do not have such comfort.  And they readily acknowledge this.
     So what do we do?  We are left with believing in God in the midst of evil and pain, or not believing in God in the midst of evil and pain.  The latter, one might argue, is the braver option:  it seeks no other comfort than that of one's fellow human beings.  It doesn't pretend there is anything else.
     But the question remains:  why, in an accidental world, do we even seek comfort at all?  We may not know what to say to God, but in a random world, a world of accidental plops, we have nothing, absolutely nothing, really, to say at all.
     We'll never unravel our ultimate emptiness 

      "God opens his hands," writes the psalmist, "and satisfies the desire of every living thing" (Psalm 104).  Although we all have much for which to give thanks, perhaps the most important thing for which we can be thankful is that we can give thanks.  We can rejoice that we can be aware of who we are, that we can experience the gracious bounty of the universe, that we can know, really know, that we are beings who can create life, culture, and moral sensibility.  We can be grateful that we are here.

     Many a theologian has observed that all truth is God's truth.  If so, we can also give thanks for that which enables us to know everything else:  truth. Even more important, we can give thanks that truth is embodied in a living being and that, in the providence of God, we can find it.
      Give thanks that despite the fractured state of modern spirituality, God is nonetheless able to disclose to us truth, the truth of life, the truth of death, the truth of existence, existence as it was communicated in the most wondrous existence of all, the person of God's son, Jesus Christ.
     Happy Thanksgiving!

     "If the sun refuses to shine, I'd still be loving you; when mountains crumble into the sea, there would still be you and me."  These beautiful words come from Led Zeppelin's song, "Thank You."  As our world continues on its merry way, as we and our lives continue marching across the rims of space and time, as destiny continues to weave itself into every corner of our humanness, we look at each other, we look at those whom we love, and we marvel:  how could such things be?  How, when we are acutely aware of our finitude and the stark limits of our planet's ability to sustain itself, do we manage to cling to love, that magical force, fact, and feeling that courses through all parts of the cosmos?
     Because we know, know in the deepest recesses of our hearts, that when all is said and done, when the sun stops shining and the mountains topple into the most distant sea, love, in all its expressions and manifestations, will be all that remains.
    God is forever.

     "Why is the Religious Right so loud and vocal?"  So asked a person at my atheist discussion group the other night.  This person has long been troubled by the "Religious Right's" (like every broad designation for a particular viewpoint, the term Religious Right doesn't necessarily account for every nuance of opinion among those who generally identify themselves as conservative Christian Republicans) almost hostile approach, as he saw it, to those who disagree with them.  Although he has no problems with religious people expressing their opinion in a public forum, he is uncomfortable with the way that some of these people insist that because their view is the view of God, it is the only one that is correct.
     It's a legitimate complaint.  Americans do not live in a theocracy.  They live in a democracy, a highly pluralistic society, one in which all viewpoints are given equal time and respect.  Although no one needs to agree with every viewpoint, everyone needs to recognize that those expressing them have the right to hold to them.  Above all, we honor the fact of human dignity, marvelous beings who have been created in the image of God.
     It's difficult, but we would not have it otherwise.  We all want to be free.  And so does God.  We must tread very carefully when we insist that we know God's will, and even more so if we insist that everyone must agree with it.  God doesn't insist; why should we?  Because by their very nature religious viewpoints speak out of transcendence and mystery, we finite humans must step into them with tremendous caution.  Who are we to say that, in every, absolutely every circumstance, we really know?
     Understand the religious person's zeal, I told my atheist friend, but understand as well that God is a God who speaks, as Elijah found on Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 17-19), with more wisdom and gentleness than we can imagine.
    We, we beings of reason, are only passing through.

     "Call me Ishmael."  So goes the immortal first line of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.  A genuinely masterful novel, Moby Dick is many things.  Most deeply, however, it is the story of a person wrestling with the two most perennially vexing ideas in the universe:  divine sovereignty and human choice.

     Curiously, the name Ishmael means, "God hears."  Does he?  If God hears, we have a way out of this puzzle.  If God does not hear, we are left bereft.  Absent the idea and/or presence of God, human choice is meaningless:  we are making decisions in a pointless world.  Yet the idea and presence of God are confounding when set against choice:  how do we know which is which?
     The answer is that we don't.  As Ahab shouts to the sky, "This whole act's immutably decreed.  'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled" . . . then, later on, "I thrust the spear [into the whale]!"  Only me!
     And God hears.  We're the only ones here, yes, but God's the only one who hears us.

    Pussy Riot is at it again.  Its latest song, another clever and biting attack on the ruling powers of the world, particularly those in Russia, demonstrates, once more, the vast gap between those who rule and those who do not.  Although democracy seems ascendant around the planet, in many ways it is not.  Pussy Riot captures this reality acutely.
     Even if rulers in a democracy serve by virtue of election, too often they serve only a few people, usually their closest supporters and friends.  Moreover, from the day they take office, they are looking at being re-elected (except perhaps in Mexico, where the president serves only one six year term).  Consequently, they frequently sacrifice a nation's long term health for their own reward.
     
     Regardless of where Pussy Riot stands on the question of God, its newest song makes an important point:  no ruler is an island, accountable only to him or herself.  Ultimately, a ruler is beholden not just to the people who elected him or her, but the greater meaning that pervades the cosmos, a meaning that, try as they--and all of us--endeavor desperately to grasp, they and we will never fully comprehend.
     We are beachholds in a vastly random and divinely measured sea.

     Saturday, November 11, you may know, was Veterans Day in the U.S.  As most history students know, November 11, 1918, marks the day that the armistice of World War I took effect (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).
     I am not a warmonger.  All things considered, I would rather the nations of the world never fight again.  I do not live to engage in war and combat, and I do not favor using war to resolve international differences.  Broadly speaking, I do not believe that God does, either.

     Yet wars happen, and many people feel called to or are conscripted to fight in them. Unfortunately, while some survive, far too many do not.  And this doesn't count the untold numbers of civilians who perish, too.  War's tragedy is immense.  So when I think about Veterans Day, I think about the horror of war, and I think about the safety of innocent people.  I also think about the sense of duty many people feel to their country. In addition, I think about the sin of the world, the fact of human compassion, and the beauty of peace.  And I think about God's willingness, in Jesus Christ, to die for us--and the world--so as to set all things right.  And I try to put all of these together.
     It's not easy.  It's not easy to know what, amid the forest, God thinks.  It's not easy to know what eternity, the lens by which all things will be assessed, envisioned, and judged, means.  But it's easy to know that God is present, in peace as well as war, his love for us ever unchanged.
     And maybe, in all of our human stumblings and beautiful yet flawed rationality, that's what we most need to know.

     Is truth difficult?  Indeed, it is.  During a lunch conversation I had yesterday with my Muslim friend, we talked about truth.  He insisted that the Qur'an is the final truth; I said that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  Although we did not agree on who Jesus was, we agreed that much of what he said was difficult to understand--because, we both said, it was true (except, from my friend's standpoint, Jesus' assertion that he was the son of God).
     Whether we are talking about the truth of a statement we make, advice we get from a friend, criticism of our work behavior, or the dimensions of metaphysics, the truth is often hard to take.  And why not?  If truth was easy, we would all know it.  But most of us spend our entire lives looking for it.  We struggle, we wrestle, we wonder.  Moreover, even if we believe we have found the truth, we still have problems with it.  We are creatures of relativity, undoubtedly rational, but highly subjective, too.  We have trouble imaging in black and white.
     That's why the Qur'an is difficult for many to believe, and that is why many find Jesus too much to accept.  They both challenge our ideas of what we can know.  They both challenge our notion of what can be true.  Most of all, they confront us with a choice we cannot ignore.
     If we want an easy life, we do not want truth.  If we want life, however, we want truth more than anything else in the world.
     Truth is that difficult.

     A few weeks ago, my wife and I participated in an annual event in our community called the Crop Walk for Hunger.  People who walk raise or give money to combat hunger around the world.  We love doing it.
     I hate to see anyone go hungry.  Unfortunately, as I write these words any number of people die from hunger.  Even sadder, most of these are children.  It's heartbreaking.
     Most of us are well fed.  Most of us live in reasonable shelter.  Most of us do not need to worry about where our next meal will come from.  Moreover, most of us take these things for granted.
     A book I've been reading (The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh) makes an interesting point in this regard.  Ghosh suggests that we do not so much use reason to order our lives as we walk in habitual motion.  We do not think about what we are doing or why we are doing it.  We just go through the motions.
     So it is with global hunger.  So busy are we going through our motions, trying to stay afloat of our many existential priorities, that we forget the bigger picture.
     Tragically, yet remarkably, the bigger picture is much bigger than we think.  We walk in the umbra of something far more weighty than we can presently imagine.  In this presence, this living God, all things, including global hunger, find conclusion and meaning. 
     One of my Jewish friends has often told me that, "We work with God to help the world" (tikkun olam).  Indeed, we do.  We go through our motions, yes, but God does, too.  Together, if we listen to each other, we can move the world forward, forward to its wonderful destiny.
     But we need to listen.

     Are we wondrous?  Walt Whitman certainly thought so.  In his famous "Song of Myself," Whitman writes with passion and eloquence about what he considered to be the magnificence of the human being.  He was, he said, celebrating himself and all humankind.  He was celebrating vocation and creation; father and son; mother and daughter; worker and employer; citizen and country.  Whitman wanted the world to know how remarkable the human being is.
     Some people thought Whitman was idolatrous or egomanical.  They miss his point.  Whitman well understood that he was not perfect.  He was quite aware of his faults and flaws.  But Whitman grasped one of the most essential facts about the human being:  the capacity to choose.  Conscious in ways that no other animals are, humans are blessed with an extraordinary ability to ponder, dream, and envision and, significantly, the means to choose and execute these dreams.  We can manipulate our lives and those of the world in ways no other species can.
     And in this is our glory as well as our tragedy.  But would we want it any other way?  It's impossible to be free without experiencing both.
     Though Whitman didn't believe, it seems, in the conventional Christian notion of God, he understood very well the import of the idea of God for the human being.  Not only are we free, we know we are free.
     In a random world, we would know neither.

     "Who knows that the breath of humans ascends upwards, and the breath of other animals descends downwards?"  In this verse from Ecclesiastes, we see the essence of faith.  As we continue to recoil from the horrific mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, we weep.  We weep deeply for those who are lost, for those who must put their lives back together in the wake of loss.  It's unbearably tragic.
     Yet as many of the survivors said, "We have faith that they are in heaven.  And we will see them soon."  They believe that the "breath of humans ascends upward."  They believe that their loved ones are living, again, this time for eternity.
     It all comes down to faith.  In Jesus' resurrection, we have the evidence.  And in our hearts, we have the response.
     Ah, faith.  So simple, yet so unspeakably complex.

     “I guess you have your choice of trying to make money or getting involved with adventure.  Most people get married, and by the time they’re 30 they’ve got a couple of kids, and then they’re strapped down. Then they have to work.”
     So said Fred Beckey, renowned American mountaineer who died last week at the age of 94.  Beckey took up climbing at a very early age and never stopped.  He climbed well into his nineties.  Although some of his fellow mountaineers found Beckey to be cantankerous and difficult at times, they uniformly lauded his exploits on the peaks.  Beckey probably put up more first ascents than any other mountaineer in history.  He seemed unstoppable.
     As it turned out, only death could stop him.  All of us have a choice in how we live our lives.  Though we are born into different situations and circumstances, some to lives of honor and privilege, others to lives of ignominy and poverty, we all, in the end, must decide, for ourselves, how we will live the life we have been given.  For Beckey, it was adventure.
     What is it for you?  If you dig deep enough, you will see, in a manner of speaking, that eternity, the vast and unremitting presence that surrounds this finite world, hinges on what you decide.  Beckey created a life of meaning.  So can you.  Yet neither you nor he could do unless there is a God.
     Otherwise, our lives have no real reason to be. 
  

     We all have a birthday, and tomorrow is mine.  But what's a birthday?  Birthdays are the stuff of existence.  When I think about my earliest years, years when I wondered why I was here, why I was doing what I was doing, why I was being told to believe the things I was told to believe, I often wonder: how did I get to where I am today?  I have no idea. Yes, I planned, and yes, I tried to execute intentions, and yes, I went here and there, and yes, things happened, but in the end I have no clear idea of how I landed on today.  Who does?  We're all living in a universe we did not make, a universe over which we ultimately have very little control.
     All we know is that life is a promise and expectation, an inkling and anticipation, a river and ocean coming constantly together in a creation we do not really make, a creation that, whether we know it or not, is made meaningful by God.  We are poems with a point, poems with a destiny, poems with a conclusion.  We are poems of eternity. 
     Otherwise, it's futility.

     "Faith," Augustine once observed, "seeks understanding."  It seems counterintuitive, does it not?  Isn't it better that we seek first to understand and, subsequently, if we still do not understand everything, turn to faith, of some kind, to keep going?

     In most areas of life, this is undoubtedly true.  Modern science is built upon the premise that we ought to seek understanding in all arenas of human existence.  And we should.
     Yet as Martin Luther pointed out in contending that we ultimately find God by faith, so did Augustine rightly note that although we will understand many things through observing the world, we will not understand God until we admit that, on the basis of the material world--absent revelation--only, we cannot.
     In all material affairs, yes, seek to understand.  In matters of the spirit, however, understand that you must believe first.
     And God will open himself to you.  To believe is to understand.  Everything.
     

      As we consider the fact of All Souls Day, the day after Halloween, we remember.  We remember our loved ones who are gone, we remember what has gone well, we remember what has not.  We remember existence, we remember life itself.  We ponder the import of memory.
     We also ask, how do we explain what has happened, what has been?  How do we measure the span of our existence?  How do we measure the value of our days?

   In ourselves, though we may take pride in reflecting on a life we believe to be well lived, a life that has made its mark, how do we really know?  We have only ourselves and our fellow human beings.  We measure by what we know.  And what we know is frightfully little.  Rarely do we ever see the big picture.  Rarely do we grasp the full meaning of our years.  We're finite creatures living in a finite world, a world that, one day, according to all cosmological predictions, will be burned up by an expanding sun, gone forever, never to be seen again.  It's over.
     God indeed said to Adam that, "From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return."  Dust only has value if it has a reason to be, that is, if someone thought of and remembered it, someone who enabled the processes that birth it into reality.  Absent this, though dust could well be, we have, absent anything in us, no reason to believe it should.  It all just happened.
     Sure, things happen all the time.  But why?  The rhythms of the world demand it, the patterns of the cosmos enable it.  Yet where did these come from?
     As we remember our loved ones, as we remember what has been, as we look forward, as poet Robert Browning wrote so eloquently, to what is to come, we also remember this: if nothing, broadly speaking, was meant to be, then there is no reason for anything to be.
     Enjoy the ride, delight in God:  revel in the fact of personal creation.